PF infighting is recipe for failure, says Chimbaka

PF infighting is recipe for failure, says Chimbaka
By Inonge Noyoo
Saturday August 09, 2008 [04:01]

BAHATI Patriotic Front (PF) member of parliament Besa Chimbaka has said the current confrontations and infighting in the party are a recipe for failure. And Chimbaka has challenged the Task Force on Corruption to give a satisfactory explanation on the criteria they used to arrive at the decision to sell Mansa Milling Company to MMD spokesperson Benny Tetamashimba.

In an interview, Chimbaka observed that it had become clear to any well-meaning voter who supported the PF and its leadership that the party had lost track of its development agenda.

He said the name-calling, bickering, insults and character assassination in the party were at the expense of the party’s development agenda.

“What is the Patriotic Front as a party and its leadership doing about strikes and go slows at our universities? What about the issues of preventing ignorance and diseases? How about the issues of democratic governance in the nation itself?

How much impact has Patriotic Front and its leadership created in the development of Zambia resulting from its policies and development agenda? These are the issues we need to address as a party, not intra-party bickering,” he said.

And Chimbaka urged the Task Force on Corruption not to simply brush aside people’s complainants about the Mansa Milling Company transaction but to offer satisfactory explanation.

“People have a lot of queries regarding this transaction. They want to know whether the Task Force sold Mansa Milling to Tetamashimba because he was MMD. They are also questioning the effectiveness and transparency of the Task Force,” he said.

Chimbaka said the people of Luapula were not only surprised but unhappy with the sale of Mansa Milling Company to Tetamamshimba and there was need for the Task force to give its position.

“People of Mansa, especially the business community, expected Mansa Milling to be sold to management. The people of Mansa were waiting for Task Force to advertise and for people to openly bid but all they heard was that the milling had been sold to Tetamashimba at a cost of K840 million,” he said.

Chimbaka challenged the Task Force on Corruption to produce a list of people who bid for the sale, the offers received and from whom.
“We also want to know how much publicity the whole sale was given because the people feel sidelined by the secret sale of Mansa Milling by the Task Force to Tetamashimba,” he said.

Chimbaka further dismissed Tetamashimba’s claims that he has since invested K1.3 billion in Mansa Milling as false.

“Let him show us which bank and which project he is working on, because it is very clear to see that nothing is being done and Mansa Milling has been closed,” he said.

Chimbaka revealed that he had since written to President Levy Mwanawasa to inform him about the people’s complaints concerning the sale of the company.